During the 2011-2012 term, the New York Court of Appeals handed down two decisions analyzing the issue of “proximate cause” in the context of personal injury actions. These decisions provide valuable guidance to the practitioner tasked with developing a strategy in cases where proof of proximate causation is problematic. In a third decision, the Court of Appeals eased the manner in which plaintiffs may prove a threshold “serious injury,” as defined in New York’s No-Fault Law. Practitioners can now expect that a greater number of meritorious “serious injury” claims, and some with questionable merit, will make it to the jury. In the fourth decision that we discuss, the court clarified the scope of a social host’s duty to supervise intoxicated guests on the host’s property.

Proximate Causation

As the Court of Appeals has explained, the concept of proximate cause resists a single definition that allows for uniform application across diverse fact patterns.1 A judicial determination of whether a party’s negligence constitutes a proximate cause, therefore, may depend upon the deciding court’s public policy considerations respecting the allocation of benefits, risks and burdens of negligent conduct. A public policy interest in curtailing the liability exposure of a repeat defendant, the state of New York (the state), might have partially motivated the Court of Appeals in how it resolved two cases.

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